Thursday, June 14, 2012

Is Corporate America the savior of our American Way?

To listen to Mitt Romney, one would think that Corporate America is the Savior of our American way of life. On his official web site, Mitt implies that anything the government can do, Corporate leaders can do better. That's the foundation of his approach to all issues in the upcoming election.

For example, Obama-care is not as good as it could be so it should be abolished and left to the states to determine. After all Mitt claims that 75% of all corporations can not hire workers because of Obama-care. Medicare has too many inefficiencies, so it's funding should be reduced and more of the financial burden placed on the elderly. Privatization (read "made into a private corporation") is inevitable for Medicare where already confused seniors can additionally try to unravel which plan is best for them.

Mitt wants marginal tax rates reduced by 20%. Marginal tax rates effect only the highest income bracket earned and are not the same as average tax rates. Marginal tax rates have greatest impact on the wealthiest in America and are intended to fairly tax individuals based on their earnings, with low income earners being taxed at a lower rate than higher income earners. The advantage to this reduction in taxes would be heavily weighted towards the wealthiest (read Corporate executives) in America.

It's interesting that each of Mitt's webpages on each of the areas that he would like to change as President has a caring introduction to the middle-class person who might be reading it. Of course as you read further into the page, one can see how his proposals would benefit Corporate America significantly, while reducing the benefits to the middle class, poor and most needy in America.

For example, in Mitt's page about "Human Capital" (note that with these words even the flesh and blood that are you, is still considered a physical asset to Corporate America) he starts the introductory paragraphs with how dynamic and great the country's greatest renewable natural resource (you) is. You are better than oil, since that's not renewable, but you still fall into the same category for Corporate purposes. And what's Mitt's plan to help American workers? Why to give away more American jobs to foreigners of course! The same strategy that Corporate America has been using for the last 10 years to bring in cheap labor and send out jobs to 3rd world nations. Mitt calls for an increase in visa caps, which means more foreigners will be allowed to work in America taking American jobs from skilled American workers. One of the reasons the unemployment rate is high is because American Corporate greed, looking for a new way to reduce costs and increase personal wealth of Corporate executives has been giving away American jobs to foreigners. This strategy does not help American Workers, will not improve unemployment and will not find new jobs for the Americans who lose out to foreigners. It does help Corporate executives increase their personal wealth however.

In his webpages on "Labor" Mitt begins by praising American Labor Unions for their important contributions to American Society. But he turns the table on union members by intimidating that Union management is operating under their own self interest and not in the interest of their members. In case we forget, American Corporate executives once used American children in dirty and unsafe manual labor "sweat shops" as a viable renewable labor resource. Government regulations prohibiting child labor had to be enacted to get the practice to stop. Knowing that American Corporate executives would use children in such a way should make a person think twice about trusting Corporate America to work for the benefit of its workers. So Mitt's idea about Unions is to remove them from deliberations and remove union leaders from the National Labor Relations Board. Again, stacking the deck in favor of American Corporate greed.

Mitt's page on "Regulation" is laughable, but all in all is strictly geared toward reducing regulations that he believes impedes the profit-making ability of Corporate American executives. Of course these include repealing Obama-care, repealing Dodd-Frank, amending Sarbanes-Oxley, and reviewing all Obama era regulations that may somehow restrict profit-making of Corporate American executives. How does this help America? It only helps if you consider America solely composed of American Corporate executives. All of these regulations were intended to help protect all American people, not just the Corporate executive kind.

If you are a middle class American, I hope that it is more obvious to you that Romney does not speak for you. His policies would only hurt you. It is discouraging to me that some middle-class Americans have gotten behind Romney. My honest belief is that should Romney win the Presidential election, the culture of America would change drastically. The rules of politics would so unfairly favor the rich, that a new era of suffering would present itself to those of us who live from paycheck to paycheck. The heart of America is on the line. If your personal financial situation is not satisfactory and you think that the Republican Party will help you, you are wrong.

Be an educated voter. Read, learn and listen to the Presidential debates. Then make your vote.